About Crimea:

Best climbing area in Ukraine and probably a future world-class climbing destination similar to Callanques or Verdon in France or Arco in Italy.

The climbing regions are organized from left to right, as if following the Sevastopol-Yalta highway. Details on the map below.

Numerous destinations exist, especially in the Southern part of the peninsula as the Northern one is rather flat. Rock is limestone, and more and more well-equipped sport routes are being developped all over the place. Routes range from 5 to 9a, with the majority in the 6b-7a range.

Climate is sub-tropical, allowing for a climbing season all year round, with rather hot summers and chill winters. The best times to come are thus autumn and spring.

Crimea is a climbing paradise for both, sport climbers looking for a single-pitch challenge (you should usually look for a 'sport' indication in brakets next to the climbing area), and mountaineers looking for longer routes with multi-pitch adventure (look for 'adventure' in brackets next to the climbing areas, standing for multi-pitch routes that have a higher involvement factor and might require trad/aid gear to master).

The most famous and classic sport-climbing crags are centered around the city of Yalta. Nikita rocks and Krasnuj Kamen (Red Rock) are the best-known ones with hard sport routes - and sometimes pretty polished easier ones. These are mainly one-pitch routes equipped with up-to-date bolts. You can find further sport-climbing around Sevastopol (Sarich or the pretty popular Parus), Simferopol (Kizil-Koba with its short but hard routes or Petrovka in the city itself) or Bahchisarai with its esthetic curves and white stone.

If you are a trad climber, you will find enough to satisfy your needs as well - numerous places exist offering from 1 to 12 or more pitches of fun. Soviet alpinists trained in Crimea for big walls for a reason. You can find multi-pitch and trad walls 400m long in average between Sevastopol and Yalta, as well as in Sudak or Alushta. The regions and areas are organised from left to right, as they appear to the traveler. Thus we start with Arfen-Cher-Burun and the Foros adventure region, go through Chelyabi, Foros Kant and the Kilse chain to finish in the Yalta adventure region with such highlights as Marcheka or the hard and famous Shaan-Kaya presenting one of the hardest multi-pitch lines in the ex-Soviet Union. Feel free to explore further Alushta and Sudak for even more inspiring walls.

Beware that numerous multi-pitch routes lack in-situ protection - only a minority is bolted. You will need your full rack, slings, maybe even skyhooks and aid gear for some. Rock being limestone, protection might be tricky - come prepared, open your bag of tricks and enjoy!

WHAT'S ON THE WEB
Thanks mainly to the Mountain.ru and their wonderful database (in Russian) about Crimea. I used most of their information for wall/route descriptions and other interesting facts.
You can check some inspiring pictures of the land here.
Check VectorCrimea for some GPS downloadable maps of Crimea (Russian).
If you want to find more first-hand information about climbing and lodging or hire a guide, visit the website of a local private mountain guide Sergey Sorokin...